A variety of systems exist today for allowing a person to summon help, or otherwise raise an alarm. For example, home-based alarm systems sometimes have a panic button, which the homeowner can press to set off the alarm siren and/or to summon help, say from a police, fire or medial department. Prior art systems may comprise a transportable alarming device, particularly for use by persons who have a disability or potentially serious medical condition, which may be worn on the person and may communicate with a base unit in the home. If the person experiences an emergency or other difficulty, they may trigger the alarming device, which typically communicates via a base unit comprising a remote monitoring service. However, one disadvantage of these types of system is that their range of operations is generally restricted to within the person's home, or its immediate surroundings.
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States put into place on Jan. 1, 1997, and supersedes the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), which itself superseded the CONELRAD System. EAS messages are transmitted via AM, FM, Broadcast television, Cable television and Land Mobile Radio Service, as well as VHF, UHF, and FiOS (wireline video providers). Digital television, Satellite television and digital cable providers, along with Sirius XM satellite radio, IBOC, DAB and digital radio broadcasters have been required to participate in the EAS since Dec. 31, 2006. DirecTV, Dish Network and all other DBS providers have been required to participate since May 31, 2007. In 2008 the FCC began work on another system for public alerting designed and targeted at smart phones, meant to support the EAS. The Commercial Mobile Alert System made its debut in about early 2013 in select states for select events. While these systems enhance emergency event reporting, there presently are no systems available for an individual user to both access and supplement the content broadcast by these systems.
Many people today also have a personal cellular or mobile telephone, which allows them to summon help by calling another person or a police/emergency responder dispatch. In addition, many cellular telephones automatically report the location of the caller to the dispatch, as determined by a GPS feature in the telephone. However, a limitation of calling a 911 service is that it can only be used after an emergency, such as when an injury, risk or distress has occurred, and is only received by the dispatcher or other person contacted by the person experiencing the emergency.
Further aggravating these current limitations is the fact that many emergency responders and public agencies are underfunded, understaffed, and do not have the capacity to respond to a large number of people requesting their services, particularly during emergency events affecting more than a few individuals. Even when public agencies are able to respond quickly, people may also want to make their family and/or friends aware of potential danger, or potentially update their contacts with respect to their status or condition.
Using current systems, there is no effective way to send a targeted alert to people who need to be made aware of dangerous situations, acts of crime/terrorism, natural disasters or other emergency situations. Natural disasters, for example, include but are not limited to disasters that occur through natural means, such as blizzards, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, heat waves, landslide, etc. Other emergency situations may be non-naturally occurring situations, such as kidnapping, civil unrest, criminal activity and or terrorist activity, for example. These situations can and often do occur with little warning and early awareness to those individuals within the immediate area of danger. The immediate availability of pertinent information to emergency responders is also often critical to containing the damage or preventing escalation.
Thus, there is a long felt need to provide a customizable alert system that an individual or group of individuals within a community and/or geographic area may utilize to quickly and timely obtain relevant information regarding their community and/or geographic area. In addition, there is a need for such a system that also allows the individual users of an alert notification system to quickly and easily send out relevant information to the other individuals that are also members of the community and/or are located in specific geographic areas of choice, including to early responders or other emergency responders.